JAKARTA
\nTwelve women working in an illegal gold mine in Indonesia\u2019s North Sumatra province were killed when a cliff collapsed and triggered a landslide that buried them, police said, AFP news agency reported.
\nUnlicensed mines are common across mineral-rich Indonesia, with abandoned sites attracting locals who scrounge for leftover gold ore without using proper safety equipment.
\nA collapsed cliff in North Sumatra\u2019s Mandailing Natal district struck Thursday afternoon, killing 12 women — aged 30 to 55 years old — who were digging for gold in an abandoned illegal mine.
\n\u201cThe cliff around the mine collapsed and buried the 12 women, killing them all,\u201d local police chief Marlon Rajagukguk told AFP late Thursday, adding that the victims were not professional miners.
\nTwo other women who worked alongside them managed to survive the disaster and ran back to the village to report the incident to the authorities.
\nIt took hours for rescuers to evacuate the victims\u2019 bodies as they were in a two-metre deep hole, which was filled with mud.
\n\u201cNow all the bodies of the victims have been returned to their family,\u201d Rajagukguk said.
\nIllegal gold mining is rampant in the Mandailing Natal, about 300 km (186 miles) south of the provincial capital of Medan, and several sites are abandoned by the operators.
\nMining accidents are frequent across the archipelago due to landslides, especially during the monsoon summer months.
\nLast year six miners died when an illegal gold mine collapsed in Parigi Moutong on the island of Sulawesi.
\nIn 2020, 11 miners in Sumatra were killed in a landslide triggered by heavy rains.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
JAKARTA Twelve women working in an illegal gold mine in Indonesia\u2019s North Sumatra province were killed when a cliff collapsed and triggered a landslide that buried them, police said, AFP news agency reported. Unlicensed mines are common across mineral-rich Indonesia, with abandoned sites attracting locals who scrounge for leftover gold ore without using proper safety […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258234,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6673,617,6674],"class_list":{"0":"post-258202","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-gold-mine","9":"tag-indonesia","10":"tag-landslide"},"yoast_head":"\n